SAN FRANCISCO / Sikhs can build rural temple

Published 4:00 am, Thursday, August 3, 2006

A Sikh congregation can build a temple in a rural area of Northern California under a federal religious-freedom law, despite local government objections, an appeals court has ruled.

Tuesday's ruling by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld the law, which limits the ability of land-use regulators to exclude houses of worship. It was the court's first ruling on the constitutionality of the 6-year-old law.

"This resounding victory for the Sikh group has nationwide implications for a wide range of cases dealing with religious land interests," said Jared Leland, spokesman for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which filed arguments in the case and has represented numerous churches in zoning disputes with cities and counties.

The Becket Fund is also representing Redwood Christian Schools, which is trying to open a high school in Castro Valley over Alameda County's objections. That case, which involves the same federal law, is before a federal judge in San Francisco.

In Tuesday's ruling, the court upheld a judge's decision allowing the Guru Nanak Sikh Society of Yuba City to convert a single-family home into a temple for as many as 75 members in an unincorporated area of Sutter County.

County officials had rejected the congregation's previous proposal for a temple in a residential area of Yuba City, citing residents' fears of noise and traffic.

The congregation in 2002 acquired property in an agricultural area and won approval for a permit from the county planning commission. County supervisors rejected the temple, however, saying the site was too far from the city for orderly growth and would constitute "leapfrog development."

The Sikh organization sued under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000, which prohibits government land-use regulators from imposing "substantial burdens" on the exercise of religion, unless they can show a compelling need.

Congress passed the law after an earlier measure, which applied to a broader range of state and local government decisions, was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1997.

The appeals court said Sutter County's rejection of the second proposed temple site imposed a substantial burden on the congregation's religious practice, because it amounted to a decision that no site, whether in a residential or a rural area, would be approved.

The court also said the federal law was a way for minority religious groups to counteract discrimination.

Congress compiled evidence that "governmental entities nationwide purposefully exclude unwanted religious groups by denying them use permits through discretionary and subjective standards and processes," said Judge Carlos Bea in the 3-0 decision.